Category Archives: writing

Avoidance

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There is no work avoidance like that of a writer faced with writing a scene that compels her.

This scene has chased me for two weeks now. It’s there in my mind when I wake up in the morning. I play it and embellish it and feel my way into it when I’m working around the house or eating my meals. When I’m talking with someone, the scene steals away part of my attention. It follows me to bed at night. It shapes my dreams.

It’s a brutal, compelling, climactic scene. I love it. The emotions in it are raw. Here the protagonist finally faces the last thing he ever wanted to face, and he grows beyond his limitations. I know what the scene must do and how it must do it.

I could, I tell myself, sit down and write at least a first draft of this scene in a couple of hours.

Except that, apparently, I can’t.

In the last couple of weeks or so, I have cleaned and weeded the garden. I’ve hosted six house guests and done at least that many loads of laundry after the guests left. Heck, I even ironed some shirts! I’ve been to the Farmer’s Market, the supermarket, the Whole Foods market, the liquor-store-cum-gourmet market, and the produce market. And it’s not like I haven’t had time at my computer. On the contrary: I’ve sat at my computer for hours. I’ve edited another book I’m working on until it’s ever so much better than it was last month. I have proofread an entire book as a consultant. I’ve written a couple of blog posts, maintained an active presence on facebook, and kept up with all my email. I’ve taken, edited, organized, and posted numerous photographs. I’ve found and ordered cabinet parts, refrigerator parts, and books online. Let’s face it; I’ve done just about everything… except… write that one scene.

Really, I must sit down and do this.

Maybe right now.

Guys and girls

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The writer Jagi Lamplighter, author of Prospero’s Daughter, recently received some flak on her blog after reporting on a panel she participated in at Worldcon. The panel was about diversity, and some of the blog’s readers took offense at her referring to a fellow panelist as a “black girl”. Apparently, “black woman” would not have been so derogatory. Yet Jagi says that she refers to all women as “girls” and means nothing by it.

I believe her. I refer to all people of any sex as “guys”. I do it all the time. Always have.

This used to drive my father crazy. “Do you guys have any plans for the weekend?” I might ask. My father would draw himself up to his full height and dignity and respond, “Your mother is not a guy!”

I didn’t mean anything by it. Still don’t.

But this little flurry on Jagi’s blog has me thinking. First, about my father, who has been dead for over two decades now. I still miss him.

And second, about why I should call everyone “guy”. And here’s what I think: At some level, I think of myself as a guy. As in “just one of the guys”, not as in interested in women. And I do have some “guy” traits: I’m more rational than emotional (of course, we women know that men are often more emotional than rational, but you know the stereotype); prefer blue to pink; dislike frills, ribbons, high heels, dresses; prefer science fiction to romance. You get the idea.

Now, if Jagi thinks of herself as a “girl”, then of course she means nothing when she refers to other women the same way. But our mutual colleague, Danielle Ackley-McPhail, author of Yesterday’s Dreams and other books, said it better than I could.

“Hard to make everyone happy when they are pre-disposed to taking offense. Of course, as writers, these are the types of things we should take note of for future use.”

I like in particular Danielle’s complete vagueness on how we should use these things.  🙂

Getting published

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I spent a part of today dealing with the stories that have come back in, rejected and returned, through the revolving door of my fiction-writing career. Writing this stuff is hard work, but gripping. Trying to get this stuff published is punishing.

And then this cartoon floats in over the transom. It’s not fair to all those hard-working agents and editors out there who do have to slog through a lot of works not ready for publication (we’re not talking about my stories here, of course) — but we rejected writers need a good laugh sometimes to keep us going.

Verbage

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While reading this article in The New Yorker, I experienced a pang of angst as sharp as a knife. How much I love words has overwhelmed me. I know what Luddites are, but this is the first time I have come to understand in an immediate and personal way that they are attacking me, that all the stuff they are against, that stuff is the air that I breathe. Words are, to use Rilke’s phrase, the “rind, rondure, and leaf” of my being. The beauty of a turning phrase. How the tongue delights on the rhythm of words, and the mind on their improbably origins.

So, what shall we make of this:

“The most revealing moment happened earlier, when she was asked about Obama’s attack on McCain’s claim that the fundamentals of the economy are sound. ‘Well,’ Palin said, ‘it was an unfair attack on the verbage that Senator McCain chose to use, because the fundamentals, as he was having to explain afterwards, he means our workforce, he means the ingenuity of the American people. And of course that is strong, and that is the foundation of our economy. So that was an unfair attack there, again, based on verbage that John McCain used.’ This is certainly doing rather than mere talking, and what is being done is the coinage of ‘verbage.’ It would be hard to find a better example of the Republican disdain for words than that remarkable term, so close to garbage, so far from language. ”

I think I want to cry.

Balticon 42

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Call me naïve, but I have managed to reach what we politely call “a certain age” without ever attending an SF Con. Until now. And I have to say, it was a blast! Balticon 42 pretty much dwarfed any conference/convention I have attended since, well, Comdex. There were eleven parallel tracks listed for each day, along with all-day all-night events in film and anime, a LARP, and other special events shown separately. And a dealer room. And parties. And autographs by famous and soon-to-be famous authors and artists. And… Connie Willis!

Of special note for me:

· Meeting Connie Willis (more than once!). She is as much a pleasure as her stories

· Meeting in person a couple of fellow St. Johnnies who are more established in the science-fiction world than I am. I am a fan of John C. Wright, and may soon also be a fan of his delightful wife Jagi Lamplighter

· Getting a lead or two to pursue for publishing some of my stories

· Becoming an on-the-spot member of the panel on “The Future of Cities”. And hats off to our moderator James Patrick Kelly for keeping his cool when the regular panelists didn’t show up. He was great!

· Learning of the simple existence of tracks in art, music, film, and podcasting, even though I attended few of them and mostly by accident

· Attending a session called “Here There Be Dragons” thinking to learn something about dragon lore over the ages but instead learning how to draw the interlace dragon from the cross of Thorlief Hnakki at Braddan, Isle of Mann. What fun, drawing again!

· Attending a podcast of “Live! Mr. Adventure”, complete with commercials, breaking news, and audience participation

· Learning to think in scientific terms about the likelihood that humankind will encounter extra-terrestrial intelligent life (not very likely, probably, but it doesn’t really matter)

· Seeing all the wonderful costumes, both in the masquerade and on the floor

· Getting my head straight about my Web site and blog (this may take a while, but it’s coming)

· Experiencing the joys of volunteering. Who would have thought? And it was my very first Con!

Congratulations to the Baltimore Science Fiction Society and the conference organizers. You put on a great event!

INLAND EMPIRE

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Dan and I just got back from seeing INLAND EMPIRE, a three-hour stream-of-consciousness dark David Lynch movie extravaganza which — oddity of oddities — just might possibly perhaps (if you look at it a certain way) have a Happy Ending. In a nightmarish David Lynch sort of way. This is not a spoiler. Some of the best, or, well, the paid critics see it differently. Your mileage may vary.

The way I see it is colored by the fact that I’m currently clinging mercilessly to the characters and plot and world of a novel that I’ve just completed and am still polishing. So I’m sensitive to how easily one’s characters take on a life of their own; how much the author/creator has vested in them; how deeply one loves them; and how strong a draw they have on the author’s life energy when one should be doing other things.

So I think I understand just what the inland empire of INLAND EMPIRE is. Laura Dern plays at least two nested characters (an actress and the character in the movie she’s playing) and possibly as many as four. And it’s just possible (I’ll try to do this without spoilers, which, in any case, might be wrong) that an even higher level of creation envelopes the whole enterprise. Maybe two.

Macbeth

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It looks like the Boston St. John’s Alumni group is going to read Macbeth in March. This was the seminar leader’s choice, not mine, but I have to admit to a special personal fondness for Macbeth. It was the first book I remember reading. I was in kindergarten at the time and yearned for my mother to read that book to me because it had a picture of witches in it. We sat at the kitchen table together reading. It must have been winter – I remember that it was dark outside. Or maybe that was just the effect of the story. The reading was slow going as my mother had to explain words and phrases to me and often used a dictionary. In the course of persisting through Macbeth, I learned to read! You can imagine my reaction to “Dick and Jane” the following year in first grade. In fact, you can probably explain a lot about my personality because of this experience with Macbeth.

Being where you are when you’re being there

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The protagonist of many of my early fiction stories, a young man named Roderin, had the ability to Shift from one reality to another. I grew up wishing I had this talent. At heart, I didn’t want to have to inhabit the reality I was in – a characteristic that perhaps many readers (and writers) of fantasy stories share.

In the world of my bickering parents, I learned early and learned well how to get by while actually being there as little as possible. I read. When I ran out of horse stories in my branch library, I fled to the stars. When I ran out of astronomy books, I turned to fantasy and science fiction. I was light years away all the time. Alternative universes were even better.

My personal reality is a lot better now, and I don’t mind inhabiting it. Most of the time. But I can still walk down a path on a beautiful Florida campus, surrounded by grass and flowers, water vistas and gracious white buildings shining in the warm February sunshine, and feel within myself the potential to be someplace else.

Or at least, not to be here.

Not completely.

If I were Roderin, all it would take would be a focused act of will and an acceptance of a small wave of nausea that passes quickly enough. There’s always a price, after all. It’s not too bad as long as the price is not too steep.

But that’s the catch, isn’t it? For the possibility of what existence in what world in all of the heavens would I be willing to give up this world’s long-legged daughter for whose sake I am walking this campus path?

I guess I’m going to stay right here.